Note: we are republishing this story, which originally made the news in October 2017.
Going to a baseball game can be a pivotal moment for a young child. With the sights and sounds, a person can really feel great being at a major league baseball park. But when a two-year-old girl was brought to a Yankees game, a 105-miles-per-hour line drive foul ball struck her in the face, leaving her traumatized to this day.
The girl’s father, Geoffrey Jacobson, took her to the game because he loves baseball and wanted his little girl to share in the passion with him. However, she may never want to return to a Yankees game after what happened to her. She remembers it as if it was yesterday.
“She is definitely aware that she was injured by a baseball,” Geoffrey said. “Occasionally, she will say something about it that will make you cringe.”
Geoffrey decided to speak about the little girl’s trauma to the New York Post on one condition – that her name and other personal information be withheld. Although the Post printed his name, hers seems to have been protected as promised.
“We had dinner guests over a couple of weeks ago, and my daughter walked into the room with an ice pack on her doll’s head and said the doll got hit in the head by a baseball.”
Not only was the little girl smacked aside the head with the line-drive foul ball, she now imagines it happening to her baby doll. This is what she decides to do during playtime.
“One of our guests, trying to relieve the awkward silence, said, ‘Well, I guess that didn’t have any effect on her.’ And pretty much that sums it up because clearly, it’s had some traumatic impact.”
Geoffrey has another child, a 4-year-old son. He likes to rub in the fact that his little sister got struck in the head with a baseball.
When dad is watching a baseball game, the 4-year-old will ask “if we remember the time (his sister) got hit with a baseball.”
Geoffrey knows that this story can be a bit amusing to listen to, but he wants parents to realize how devastating an incident can be for a little child.
“I do hope my son and daughter don’t remember all of this a few years from now,” he said. “I try to convince myself that you don’t remember much from when you are two.”
The doting dad hopes that his little girl will fall in love with baseball. He dreams of taking his kids to games in the future but would not do so unless she had recovered from the initial trauma.
Geoffrey and his wife say they “will carry this experience the rest of our lives.”
They hope their daughter will recover soon and forget the trauma the Yankees caused her.
The New Jersey dad, who is employed as a lawyer, added, “But it is not lost on us how fortunate we are and how much worse this could have been. We could have lost our baby girl. Maybe there are angels in the outfield.”
The baseball players felt horrible that the little girl got injured by the foul ball.
Sources: New York Post
